My Einherji Academia
by I'mwastingmylifeinhere
Summary: Magnus, despite all odds, manages to get into UA, a top-tier school for heroes. It's his first step towards his dream, and along with homework and hero training comes someone he hadn't expected to meet yet - his soulmate.
1. Chapter 1

**I'm back from the dead!**

 **At first, I wanted to write a soulmate au and then I kept thinking about what the gang's quirks would be in HeroAca (because that show owns my ass now) and this thing was born. Honestly, it's extremely self-indulgent and my side project through the last couple of months. This could honestly become a monster like the obligatory Hogwarts au but I'm not that masochistic, so have this short thing instead. I hope you enjoy it!**

 **(If you haven't watched HeroAca: the majority of the world's population has superpowers called 'quirks' and being a hero is an actual paying job. UA is considered the top hero school since it has produced the majority of the world's best heroes. That's what you'll need to know for this. I really recommend you watch the show, just because it has ruined my life and I want you to suffer with me.)**

* * *

Magnus stood in awe in front of the school gates.

He was here. He made it. From this day onward, he would be a student at UA, the school with the best hero course in the country. A shiver runs through his spine at the thought. It was so surreal to stand in front of the tall, 'H' shaped building and think that this is where he'd come to for school every day from now on.

His acceptance letter had come some time ago, the video disk that would tell him whether he made it or not inside the envelope. It had been so light when he picked it up and yet it had felt so heavy in his hands.

He hadn't realized that his fingers had brushed against his soulmark until he felt a wave of reassurance spread through him from his palm, accompanied by the familiar warm feeling he got whenever his soulmate sent him their emotions through their bond. He had smiled down at his hand and sent back gratitude through the iridescent sun-like flower that sat at the fleshy bit underneath his right thumb, the stem following the path of his veins. They were only able to communicate with emotions through their soulmark, no words, but most school acceptance letters came that day, so they must have had guessed that's what had gotten him anxious.

He'd watched the video projected on his wall with bated breath, waiting for the words he dreaded to hear. _You did not get in_. But those words had never come, and what he heard instead was, _Congratulations, Magnus Chase, you have been accepted into UA!_

He'd screamed so loudly his landlady had come to see what all the fuss was about, but the frown had quickly fallen from her face when Magnus had told her the good news. The old lady had always had a soft spot for him, it was the reason she rented him the small apartment with a discount, and she had ruffled his head as if he was her own grandson.

Once she had left, Magnus had let his fingers touch his soulmark and allowed the ecstasy he was feeling to travel to his soulmate. The response had been instant; happiness, pride, and love had washed over him and Magnus had been hit once more with the profound desire to hug his soulmate tight.

Now Magnus walked to the front gates of the school, his soulmark still buzzing with the wave of positivity that had come through it that morning, the closest thing to good luck they could communicate through their bond. He smiled at the deja vu feeling it gave him. He had been standing here, that same feeling coursing through his palm to his entire body on the day of the entrance exams.

/

Okay, you can do this. This will be fine. You got this, _Magus tried to reassure himself as he walked towards UA's entrance._ You can't do this. It won't be fine. You don't have this, _his brain yelled back at him._

 _What was he thinking? He wants to be a Hero, sure, but he has a goddamn_ healing _quirk, how is he supposed to get into UA with that? This school is responsible for making some of the greatest Heroes that have ever existed, it's the best Hero Academy in the country, hell, the whole world, and only 2% of those who take the entrance exams actually manage to get in! How is he supposed to make it?_

 _He must have accidentally brushed against his soulmark, or maybe his soulmate knew him well enough to realize he must be nervous, because a wave of reassurance and positivity rolled over him._ It's okay, _it seemed to say._ You'll do great.

 _Magnus tried to hold onto that feeling. Even if he didn't get in, he had to try._ It's alright to fail, _his mother used to say when she was still alive,_ but not because you were too scared to try.

I may fail but it doesn't mean that I won't try. _Magnus took a deep breath through his nose._ I'll try.

 _As Magnus walked to the main entrance, he runs through possible ways the practical portion of the exam might go and how he could deal with them, since combat wasn't his specialty by a long shot. He brushed his fingers against his soulmark, sending back gratitude and as much positivity as he could master, though he knew his anxiousness slipped through too._

 _Magnus was so lost in his thoughts that he hadn't noticed the person in front of him that he walked into. They yelped when Magnus hit their back and he stumbled, falling on his butt. Some of the other students slowed their pace to look at what was happening and Magnus felt his cheeks flush in embarrassment._

 _"Are you alright?" The person he ran into asked. The girl in front of him had skin the color of bronze and bright brown eyes that looked at Magnus with worry and guilt, like she was somehow responsible for Magnus not paying attention to where he was going. A green headscarf wrapped around her head, hiding her hair from view, and a bag was slung over her shoulder._

 _"_ _Ah, yeah, I'm fine," Magnus said as he pushed himself up. "I'm sorry I run into you. I wasn't paying attention to where I was going."_

 _"_ _It's alright," the girl said. "I was spaced out too. I'm so nervous about the exam. Oh, I'm Samirah, by the way."_

 _"_ _I'm Magnus. Are you here for the hero course?"_

 _Samirah smiled, her eyes glimmering, and as a fellow nerd, Magnus recognized the tone of voice one used when they were very passionate about something but didn't want to scare others off. "Yes! I can manipulate air." She spun her fingers around, creating a small ball of condensed air in her palm. Magnus looked on in awe, suddenly very self-conscious of his own quirk. "What about you?"_

 _"I want to get in the hero course too," Magnus said flustered, a habit left behind from years of being told his quirk isn't suited for a cool hero. "I, um, I'm a healer."_

 _"_ _Oh, that's great! You'd make a great rescue hero!" They climbed up the front steps of the school building, kids their age everywhere around them, and Magnus realized once more that all these kids, all of them with their own lives, were here to pursue the exact same dream._

 _Magnus fidgeted uncomfortably with the hem of his hoodie. "Thank you. I should, uh, get going. I need to find my seat. Good luck!"_

 _Samirah waved at him. "You too!"_

 _Magnus found the auditorium quite easily, what with the huge sign over the door and the dozens of students rushing in. Inside, the room was absolutely_ huge, _by far the biggest room Magnus had ever been in. Desks made a loose circle around a central stage, each row of desk higher up than the last, like an ancient Greek theater. He found his seat somewhere in the middle of the room and sat down, observing all the students who walked inside. Some of their quirks were easy to figure out just by looking at them, like a boy with large wings and an invisible girl. Others had weird features, like horns or muzzles or tails. His eyes landed on a kid a few rows in front of him with a mop of bright green hair that was black at the roots._

 _Magnus chuckled to himself. He found it very amusing to imagine how a person from the age before quirks would react to their society today and just how different humans could look._

 _Once the hall was filled out, the tests were passed around. Magnus may have sacrificed precious hours of sleep to study but it was worth it. The written exam was over before he even realized it and he handed his papers to the school employ who came by to collect them._

 _Chattering and whispering spread through the room as the tests were collected and the students didn't have to stay quiet anymore. Magnus noticed an alarmingly big amount of students just lying on their desks like they'd rather die after this than have to go through the practical exam too._

 _Next to him, a boy with dark skin tapped his fingers on the desk, looking much more optimistic than the majority of teens in the room. Magnus couldn't help but noticed the tapered shape of his fingers, a thin line running around them near the edge like a lid. He must have been staring for some time because the boy looked up at him and Magnus quickly averted his gaze._

 _"_ _Sorry, I didn't mean to stare," he blurted out. The boy didn't seem to share Magnus's embarrassment._

 _"_ _No, it's okay," he chuckled. "I can fire projectiles from my fingers, in case you were wondering." The lid at the edge of his fingers popped up, revealing the hollow inside._

 _"_ _Oh, that's amazing!" Magnus all but yelled, his quirk nerd coming out. "Does your body produce bullets or do you have to load them?"_

 _"_ _Both, though I need time to create new bullets if I run out. It's kind of like reloading."_

 _Magnus's mind was running a mile a minute with all sorts of different uses of this quirk, but his stupid mouth decided to voice the most ridiculous one. "Your quirk is literally finger guns."_

 _Magnus flushed when he realized what he said, but the boy chuckled. "Yeah, it is."_

 _"_ _I've already made all the jokes," a voice said from behind them. A boy – more like a man, because no fifteen-year-old had any right to be this tall and muscular – was leaning over the desk behind them, his wild mane of hair flying in every direction. "I'm Halfborn, by the way. Gun guy is T.J and this explosive lady is Mallory." The redheaded girl next to Halfborn waved. Something about the way she looked at Magnus made him think she was thinking of the best possible way to kill him._

 _"_ _What's your quirk?" Mallory asked. She had freckles_ everywhere _and her hair was just as wild as Halfborn's._

 _"_ _Um, I'm a healer. My name is Magnus."_

 _"_ _Oh, that's a useful quirk," the huge boy said. "I can make my body as hard as rock. It's why my mum named me Halfborn. I looked like I was half born and half carved out of rock."_

 _"_ _I can make explosions, if his horrible puns didn't give it away," Mallory said, jabbing Halfborn in the side with her elbow (which must have hurt if his skin was rock hard)._

 _They kept talking among themselves until a large man with a long cape walked onto the stage. Magnus recognized him as the Thunder Hero, Thor, a popular hero with the quirk of creating and controlling thunderbolts. With his loud boisterous voice, he explained to the students how for their practical exam they would be separated into groups and fight against robots, each one worth a different amount of points they could win if they destroyed it. Their performance during those battles would determine whether they passed or not._

 _As the other students warmed up in front of the gates of testing ground Beta, Magnus was… freaking out, to say the least. He knew the practical exam would have something to do with fighting, he expected it, but it still came as a blow to him. Would he be able to destroy some robots with a quirk like his? Maybe he could lay out some traps? Would it count as destroying if he made a robot trip and smack face first into the ground?_

 _Magnus was so lost in his worries he didn't notice the person stretching next to him. The green haired kid from the auditorium was studying him from the corner of their two-colored eyes, watching as this scrawny blond boy almost had an aneurysm from his nerves._

 _With a sigh, the green haired student stood up and walked closer to Magnus. "Calm down, alright? You're not doing yourself any favors worrying like that. Plus, I can feel your anxiousness from here and it's distracting."_

 _Magnus flushed and looked away. "Ah, sorry. I'm just… nervous."_ Yes, obviously you're nervous, that's why they spoke t you in the first place.

 _"_ _I noticed," the kid smirked. "Look, we don't know what this testing ground is like. Maybe it will help you use your quirk better. Maybe it won't. There's no reason to kill yourself with worry over something you can't control. Just deal with it when the time comes."_

 _Magnus couldn't really argue with that logic. "Thanks, uh…"_

 _The kid switched their weight to their left leg, their hip jutting out and their arms crossed over their chest. Their tracksuit was pink with green stripes running down the sides and coupled with the glint in their eyes it made them look like a man-eating plant about to attack."Alex. She/her at the moment."_

 _"_ _I, um, I'm Magnus. He/him always."_

 _Alex smirked and Magnus felt like the previous man-eating flower metaphor was really accurate. "Well, guess I'll see you later if you pass the exam, Magnus."_

 _Alex walked away, waving a glove-covered hand at him, and before Magnus had time to think about the exchange that just took place, Thor's booming voice came out of the speakers, telling the students to take their places because the exam was about to start._

Welp, here it goes, _Magnus though as he got his place next to the other teenagers. His heart was beating so loud he could hear it in his ears as Thor counts down to the start of the practical exams._

 _"_ _Three!"_

Okay, deep breath. Don't panic.

 _"_ _Two!"_

Just stay calm and figure out the best possible plan. You got this.

 _"_ _One! Go!"_

 _Students rushed past him, activating their quirks so they could cover more ground. One guy ran super fast, the gusts of wind he created blowing Magnus's hair back; another one climbed on top of the nearest building and Magnus saw a fucking_ cheetah _pass by him (he had the weird feeling the feline was smirking at him). Everywhere he looked people were using their powers – scanning the area for enemies from the roofs of buildings, running through the streets at impossible speeds, using the environment around them to use their quirk to move faster. They were hardly inside the faux city for three minutes when Magnus heard the deafening bang of one of the robots going down._

It's like a jungle, _Magnus though, eyes wide with fear and awe._ This is what they mean when they talk about survival of the fittest!

 _Magnus took off frantically. He needed to take down some of the robots and fast. Ideally the ones worth more points would be better but he couldn't afford to be picky now. He runs by people fighting, the remains of a robot littering the street as a boy with giant fists crushed another one close by. The sight made Magnus panic. How was he supposed to destroy a robot with a healing quirk?_

 _He stumbled as his feet hit a piece of scrap metal and he fell down, someone else crashing into him. He didn't get to see who it was because they were gone immediately with an angry, "Watch where you're going, loser!" Magnus blurted out apologies to no one; he was so out of his depth and it made him feel weak and tiny. (And compared to some of the kids here, he was.) He got up, glancing back down for a moment before grabbing the piece of metal from the ground. Maybe he could use it as a weapon._

 _Yet even armed with his makeshift sword, he had to find an enemy to fight and with so many people looking for the same thing and his low mobility, that was almost impossible. His heart had rejoiced when he had seen the bright '2' on a lone robot, but it had been swiftly destroyed by Samirah's air spear, the rays of sun filtering through the condensed air making it look like it was made out of light. The next robot had been destroyed by a boy the size of a two-floor bus, the one after that by a girl with water for hair and the one after that by a girl with horse legs._

 _He ran and he ran and he ran down the street, turning down alleys and taking sharp turns, but each and every time a robot was before him, someone else took it down before he could even lift up his scrap-metal sword._

I'm never going to make it!

 _Fueled by animalistic panic, Magnus kept running blindly. He had to find a robot, he had to find a robot, one, just one!_

 _"_ _Watch out!" Someone yelled and Magnus had enough time to see the dismembered arm of one of the robots flying straight at him. Surprise had frozen him in place, the arm flying closer and before he knew it-_

 _The arm hit the street, cracking the cement and creating a small crater at the place Magnus was standing at just seconds ago. Dazed and confused, he looked up to see a large lion holding him by the collar of his shirt. The lion put him down on the sidewalk, away from the commotion, then started to change, fur giving place to pink and mismatched eyes staying the same as the lion changed to Alex._

 _"_ _Watch where you're going or you'll get crushed, Maggie," she said before switching into a cheetah and zipping away, leaving Magnus to star at her as he tried to wrap his mind around what just happened in those few short seconds._

 _He shook his head to clear his thoughts._ No time for that now! I need to pass the exam!

 _He took off running, taking a left at a crossroad and stopped dead in his tracks before he managed to run into the back of one of the robots. It's large, clunky arms were swinging at whoever was fighting it, and as it bent forward to attack at the dodging student, Magnus caught the glint wiring between the armored plates of its head and body._

Would it break if I cut those? _He didn't mull it over for long, gripping his metal chunk tightly and jumping on the robot as soon as it bent to attack again. The sharp point of the metal wedged between the two parts of the robot as it moved around to try and throw him off. He wrapped his legs around its back and moved the metal sharply from side to side, damaging and cutting the wires with the metal's rugged edge. He must have hit something important because the robot went stiff suddenly before collapsing in a heap on the ground._

 _"_ _I had that!" The student that had been fighting the robot yelled, but Magnus was running again towards the nearest robot to attack it from behind again. Maybe he could get enough points to pass like this if he was quick enough!_

 _He was moving off the remains of his second robot, having collected four points thus far, when a scared voice yelled, "Run!" Shrieks and screams followed it as students rushed past Magnus in terror. Magnus understood why when he looked up and felt his blood run cold in his veins._

 _A robot, bigger than the buildings around them, was moving through the testing ground, destroying everything in its path. A large, blood red zero gleamed on its side and Magnus remembered Thor's instructions._

"The robots' points are written on their bodies. One is worth one point, two is worth two, and so forth. If a robot has a zero on it it's worth no points and you shouldn't bother fighting it."

I can see why! _The robot was absolutely huge, there was no way a single person could take it down unless they had a death wish and an insanely powerful quirk. Magnus was about to start running away like the rest of the students when he heard a panicked string of curses._

 _"Fucking hell! Come on, move! Shit!" Alex was lying on the street, blood seeping into her tracksuit from a wound in her side as she tried to push the ruble that was keeping her legs trapped. But the ruble was too big, too heavy, and the robot was drawing nearer, turning everything it ran over to dust._

 _Magnus didn't know what happened, didn't realize what he was doing or why, but his body was moving on its own, running opposite the fleeing students towards Alex._

 _"_ _What are you doing?" someone yelled at him. "Run!"_

I don't know, I don't know what I'm doing! _Magnus dropped to his knees next to Alex and started pushing against the ruble, the slab of concrete inching higher and higher under their combined strength._

 _"_ _What are you doing? You're going to get crushed!" Alex yelled at him._

 _"_ _So are you!" He yelled back as the piece of debris fell of Alex, revealing the broken mess that was her legs._

 _"_ _Shit," they muttered together, and with half a glance at the approaching robot, Magnus pressed his palms against Alex's bruised flesh through a rip in her pants near the knee._

Come on, you can do it. Just heal her. _He closed his eyes, tried to calm his head, and simply concentrate on the feeling of flesh and blood and bones underneath his fingertips, the hum of Alex's body under his hands as he willed the bones back in place, cracks mending and tissue reconnecting._

 _But not fast enough, not nearly fast enough. Alex was groaning at the pain of her bones being healed and the robot was coming nearer and nearer, the sounds of robot remains being crushed under its weight deafening._

It needs to stop, it needs to stop, it needs to **STOP!**

 _Magus was screaming and for a moment the world was still, burning as a fire seemed to spark inside him and spread outwards, consuming everything in its path and turning it to ashes. There was the sound of metal flying through the air and crashing into buildings as students screamed in fear, confusion, and surprise._

 _The last thing Magnus could remember was Alex's staggered expression before everything turned black._

/

 _Later, Magnus had woken up in one of the beds in the infirmary, head clouded as Eir, the Healing Hero and nurse of UA stood over him. She had run some tests on him to make sure everything was working like it was supposed to and Magnus asked her what had happened as she was writing something down on her clipboard._

 _"_ _You overexerted your quirk and passed out from the strain," she said. "The other examinees said you screamed and suddenly they were made to drop their weapons as they flew out of their hands. They said that the Zero robot stopped dead in its tracks like it had broken down."_

 _Magnus had blinked up at her, even more confused than before. "But how? I have a healing quirk, I couldn't possibly do something like that!"_

 _Eir's eyes took in Magnus for a moment, calculating as if she was thinking of how to stitch up his wound. "What does it feel like when you heal something? What do you imagine?"_

 _"_ _What? It… feels like someone's body is coming together underneath my fingers. I just imagine everything going back to their place and they do."_

 _Eir nodded. "Exactly. You don't have a healing quirk, but a body manipulation one. I am correct to assume one of your parents was a healer?"_

 _Magnus nodded, still dumbfounded. "My mother."_

 _Eir didn't seem surprised. "That must have been why you had an innate leaning towards healing, it was the genes from your mother's quirk at play. Your father most likely had some type of manipulation quirk, and the two combined and resulted in yours."_

 _Magnus was speechless, obviously. He had lived his whole life believing one thing and suddenly it was proven wrong. "But then what about the flying weapons? They're inanimate objects!"_

 _"_ _Yes, however the majority of those affected were in part made of metal, which is a component of the human body. Your quirk went high-wire because of stress and resulted in what happened. I doubt you would be able to do something like that again unless you were trained or had your life on the line."_

 _Magnus had nodded, quiet, and Eir told him that he could leave whenever he felt well enough to go home since his body was rested. Magnus had made some affirmative sound but said nothing more, lost in thought as he tried to make sense of this new information. If he could manipulate bodies, could he make someone faint or fall unconscious or even…die? Could he manipulate other chemical components of the human body besides metal? And if so, how much of it? Would it be easier for him to do that if the components were inside a body?_

 _The possibilities were so many and he was equally confused and excited. Realizing he was going to stay here thinking all day unless he was made to leave, he swung his legs off the bed and started pulling on his shoes. He was about to leave when he stopped and let his fingers trace the flower on his palm. Pain tended to travel through a soulmate bond whether they intended it or not and Magnus didn't want his soulmate to worry too much about him._

 _Relief quickly washed over him, as well as an angry, scolding feeling that seemed to yell to Magnus that if he pulled whatever he just pulled again his soulmate would kill him for it. Over the years they knew each other through delicate touches and shared emotions, Magnus had come to the realization that whoever his soulmate was, they could totally kick his ass. (Which wasn't that hard to do in the first place, but still.)_

 _Magnus took his backpack from where it was waiting for him by the foot of the bed and after a quick goodbye to Eir, he left UA._

/

Magnus found classroom 1A fairly easily and after marveling at the humongous size of the doorway – it was large enough to fit a giant though it, which made sense since some students might have a quirk that made them larger than the average human – he walked inside. Some students had already arrived, dressed in the gray blazers, red ties and dark green bottoms of the UA school uniform. Magnus didn't stand awkwardly by the door for long because T.J saw him from where he was talking to Halfborn and Mallory and waved him over.

"You got in!" T.J cheered as soon as Magnus came close, wrapping an arm around his shoulders. "I'm glad to see you here!"

"Me too," Magnus chuckled, kind of nervously. "I didn't expect to get in."

"Well, you're in," Halfborn said. "And you know what that means? You're stuck with us for the next three years!"

"Good luck," Mallory told him cynically, but Magnus couldn't help but smile. They were exchanging stories from their respective practical exams when Magnus noticed a green covered head walk through the door.

"Samirah!" Magnus called out. "How are you?"

"Oh, I'm great, thanks. I'm glad you're feeling alright, what you did at the end of the practical exam was insane."

"What did he do?" T.J asked curiously and before Magnus could respond, Alex was here, answering the question for him.

"He came back to help me even though that meant he was almost crushed by a robot and then he screamed so loud people's weapons got scared and flew out of their hands." Alex crossed her arms over her chest, the sleeves of her uniform rolled up to her elbows, exposing her toned arms and Magnus may have stared for a moment too long. "I can't decide whether that was brave or extremely stupid. Probably the second."

They talked for some more time until a short black man wearing an impeccably fashionable suit walked into the classroom.

"Sit down, everyone. My name is Blitzen, also known by the hero name Creator and I will be your homeroom teacher."

* * *

 **First chapter out of the way! The next one is next week (what do you mean I have most of it written and could post it all now?)**

 **If you have any questions about the gang's quirks and such, please ask, though check the comments first to see if I've already answered it just in case. Until next time,**

 **Go beyond! Plus Ultra!**

 **(I really wanted to do that, okay, those of you who've watched the show get it)**


	2. Chapter 2

**This came out earlier because why not? Hope you enjoy it. Also, excuse me if any of their costumes are bad, I tried.**

 **Also, I'm sorry.**

* * *

Their first Hero Practice came fairly quickly. Everybody was buzzing with excitement, thrilled to finally try something more practical than reading textbooks. Magnus and his group of friends were walking together to the locker rooms after practice, Halfborn and Mallory arguing over who would do best in today's lesson, Sam listening to them amused and T.J practically bouncing with enthusiasm next to them. Magnus was following a bit behind them with Alex walking next to him.

"Excited for today's lesson, Maggie?" the green haired boy asked.

Magnus rolled his eyes. "Yes, and I told you not to call me that."

"Aw, why not? It's cute." Alex smirked and Magnus tried to ignore the heat in his cheeks. Alex's eyes were extremely prett – unnerving. They were unnerving.

"I'm not cute," Magnus told her while also telling himself that he hadn't almost called Alex Fierro's eyes pretty. Why would he do that?

Alex put his gloved hands in his pockets. "I'd disagree with that."

Before Magnus had the opportunity to say anything, or blush any harder (curse his fair skin!), Alex kept going. "Also, it's funny to tease you."

"I'm glad my pain amuses you," Magnus deadpanned.

"I'm glad you see my point," Alex beamed at him with a shit-eating grin. Alex Fierro was an interesting person, to say the least, but Magnus really enjoyed their banter (even if most of it was at his expense).

"We should be getting our hero suits today too, right?" Magnus asked in an attempt to change the topic to something that wasn't him.

"I think. Can I trust you to tell me if I look good in it?"

Magnus's heart did a funny little thing in his chest, like he missed a step in the stairs and had a mini heart attack. _What the fuck was that?_

"I, uh, yes! I mean, ah, well, yeah, uh…" Magnus's lips were moving and words were coming out but his brain didn't seem to be involved in it because nothing he just blurted out even remotely resembled an actual sentence. Alex seemed to be enjoying his short-circuiting. "Uh, yes."

Alex's smile, Magnus's decided, was terrifying. It made his insides burn up. Why was he feeling like this?

"So eloquent," Alex teased him, his eyes glimmering. Magnus had another mini heart attack. _Should I go to the nurse for that?_

Magnus frowned at Alex and hit him in the arm. It was supposed to hurt, but knowing Magnus's strength, it probably felt like a child taping your arm. "Shut up," he hissed at Alex and he simply snorted at him, the corners of his lips tugging upwards.

"Do you know you blush very easily?" Alex asked. As if to prove his point, Magnus's cheeks burnt even more.

"I said shut up."

Outside the locker rooms were suitcases, each one with a number and a name on it depending on the student's name on the class roster. They each took their own one before walking inside the locker room, whereupon the students started changing, shirts flying off and the room being generally as chaotic as you'd expect with so many teenage boys in there. Magnus had just come back from the bathroom stall where he had changed out of his binder and into a sports bra, the stiff piece of clothing folded under his arm.

"Hey, I didn't know you had a tattoo, Alex," T.J said. Magnus turned to see what was happening and what was Alex's tattoo, and boy, was it a bad decision.

Alex was shirtless, with his back to Magnus and his shirt bunched up in his arms. On the base of his neck was a tattoo of two snakes biting each other's tail and forming an elaborate 'S'. It wasn't a weird scene. They were in a locker room, people where half-naked everywhere - Halfborn was in his freaking undies - Alex without a shirt on shouldn't have affected him, but it did. It made his face burn and his heart develop an explosion quirk like Mallory's. His eyes trailed from Alex's tattoo to the muscles in his back and Magnus should really stop staring or he'll die on the spot.

He turned around so fast you'd think his quirk was super speed, face ablaze as he threw on his uniform. He was fully dressed by the time everybody else had half their costumes on (at best, some were very weird to figure out) and rushed out of the locker room. He was pretty sure his heart shouldn't be doing whatever it was doing and there was a single thought in his mind as he sat on a bench at training ground Beta:

 _What the_ hell _was that?_

The answer came to him quickly, not to say that he liked it. _Do I like Alex?_

He shook his head, as if it would get the thought out of his head. He barely knew Alex for more than a month. And even then, he had a soulmate. People fall for their soulmates, right? That's what people always said.

 _Maybe I just think Alex is pretty,_ he thought. He never really had crushes before (was that weird for a fifteen-year-old?) but he had thought people looked good before. _Yeah, that must be what that was,_ he thought, even though every time he had thought of someone as extremely attractive, he had never… reacted to them so strongly. _That was just because I was young,_ he was quick to explain to himself.

With that little crisis over and Magnus not wanting to dwell on it too much for fear of what it might mean, he finally looked down to his costume. He had put it on so quickly he barely had an idea of what it was like.

When enrolling in UA, students gave a set of instructions on what their hero costume should be like, since it might need to be made a specific way to suit their quirk. Magnus didn't have very specific instructions, since he had never thought too much about his hero costume and all he needed to heal someone was skin to skin contact, preferably with the wound itself if possible. As such, the only instruction he had given was that the costume shouldn't cover his hands, that it should not be too skin tight (because he wasn't comfortable with that) and that it should have pockets so he could carry medical supplies.

The result was quite humble and Magnus had to admit he liked it. Both the top and bottom parts of the costume were dark green, with the shirt more fitted than the pants though still airy. The pants were large and roomy, with pockets upon pockets, each one with adjustable straps inside to keep his supplies steady. Around his waist was a large brown belt with even more pockets and hanging from it at either side of his hips were first aid kits, built into the fabric. They were surprisingly light, considering Magnus hadn't even noticed them before. The whole costume gave off the feeling of a battlefield medic and Magnus loved it.

He was in the process of tucking pants into the black boots that had come with the costume when Sam arrived. "Hi, Magnus," she said as she sat down next to him. More and more students were starting to come out by now. "I like your costume."

"Thanks. Yours is great. Valkyrie?"

Sam's costume reminded Magnus of the Valkyries in the picture books his mum would read to him. It was primarily brown, a shining metal breastplate covering Sam's upper torso. Fur lined her collarbone where her breastplate met the green fabric of her hijab, partially covering her shoulder guards. Her pants were tucked inside fur-lined boots and there was a ton of small details, like laces and wing imagery on her armor, that made Sam look like a Norse Valkyrie.

Sam's cheeks flushed red. "Yes. How did-"

"My mum used to read me mythology picture books as bedtime stories," Magnus explained. "I thought Valkyries were really cool."

Sam seemed surprised, but she smiled. "Mine too. My grandfather loves studying different mythologies, he likes finding the similarities between them, and I guess he rubbed off on me."

"So you're thinking of your hero name being Valkyrie?" Magnus asked, gesturing to Sam's costume to justify why he's asking.

Sam nodded, her eyes glimmering with the passion that came with talking about your dream. "Yeah. I want to be a rescue hero, mostly, and Valkyries would lift and carry people away from the battlefield. It seemed fitting." She stopped, as if considering something, then added, "Though most people they carried off were already dead, but the sentiment still stands."

Magnus giggled, covering his mouth with his hand. "Yeah, I guess it does."

Magnus and Sam kept talking as the rest of the students came out, their friends walking over to join them, all in their unique uniforms. Halfborn's was less of a costume and more like a simple pair of pants held up by a large belt and no shirt, his eyes covered by sweep of red, like smeared blood. Magnus guesses that with his quirk he didn't need more protection than that. T.J looked like a soldier, ammunition hanging from his belt and a rifle slung over his back (for extra firepower, Magnus guessed, in case he overused his quirk). Mallory's costume was simple, complete with dark green pants like Magnus's and a camo jacket, grenades hanging from her belt and her hair pulled back in an explosion of red curls.

Alex was the last to walk out and – _oh, sweet Odin._

 _Spandex. So much spandex._

Alex's costumed was tight, hugging his body like a second skin, and while Magnus was too busy short-circuiting over how good he looked, he could see the practicality in it. Tighter clothes meant better mobility and Alex's agility was one of his strongest points. The costume was a dark pink, making Alex's green hair stand out even more, and white claw-like marks decorated his sides. The tops' sleeves cut off halfway down his biceps, leaving his arms exposed (damn him!). He still had his black gloves on, though these were more stylized to fit in with the rest of the outfit.

"Looking nice, Fierro!" Halfborn hollered, doing a thumbs up at Alex as he walked closer. Alex rolled his eyes but smiled nonetheless at Halfborn's joke (even if his imitation of the people drooling over Alex was way too close to what Magnus was experiencing right now).

"Thanks, Gunderson. Did you forget your shirt in the wash?"

"Ha! Who needs a shirt when you have a body like this?"Halfborn punched his rock hard (literally) chest for emphasis and Mallory rolled her eyes at him.

"I'm surrounded by idiots."

"Very funny, Scar," Halfborn said wryly. Mallory poked her tongue at him and he did the same in return. Those two honestly acted like five-year-olds sometimes.

"Now, now," T.J said, walking between his two platonic soulmates, "no fighting yet. Save your energy for the lesson. You can kick each other's butts as much as you want then."

Mallory and Halfborn seemed perfectly content to keep fighting, but they shut up anyway. Nobody could deny T.J. They cinnamon roll of class 1A, everybody.

"Okay, you little ruffians, gather 'round!" Thor shouted, his sidekicks Marvin and Ottis at either side of him. With the entirety of the class gathered around in their costumes it was impossible to ignore the fact they were all heroes in training. "We will be splitting into pairs for this exercise. One pair will play the role of the villains and the other the heroes." Enthusiastic murmurs broke out among the students, the buzzing of their voices drowning out whatever the teacher was trying to say. "Now," Thor continued louder, "I don't want any of you pulling any muscles, so we'll do some stretching first."

The students fell into the routine quickly, going through the motions of each different stretch casually. Some of these had been a bit of a pain at first, given Magnus's poor physique, but he had gotten better at them over the few first weeks of the school year. He was in the middle of stretching his right arm, his elbow being pulled back by his left hand, when T.J spoke up.

"Hey, is that your soulmark?" His eyes were trained on the exposed palm of Magnus's hand, the flower on his palm shinning blue and white under the morning light. The healer's classmates turned around in interest, looking at his soulmark curiously. Magnus felt flustered under their gazes.

"Uh, yeah-"

"It's so pretty!" One girl said.

"Have you met your soulmate yet?" A boy asked.

"Do you know if it's a boy or a girl?"

"Can I touch it?"

"Uh," Magnus spluttered under all the attention. He couldn't blame them, soulmarks were a big thing, and even his friends were studying the flower on his skin, from T.J's wonder-filled gaze to Alex's unreadable expression. "Thank you, no, I haven't, I don't really care what they identify as and I would rather you don't."

The students were asking more questions, most of which Magnus didn't catch. Thankfully, Thor called them out and started explaining how the exercise would go in more detail, saving Magnus from the gossip-hungry clutches of his classmates. As their teacher announced the pairs, Magnus caught sight Alex from the corner of his eye scratching the fabric of his left glove, his two-tones eyes stuck to it as if in thought. _That's a weird tick he has,_ Magnus thought, remembering different occasions when he had seen Alex do the same thing. He wasn't able to think about that much though, because turns out he was part of the first pair along with water-haired girl, their opponents a moth-looking boy and a guy that could change his height.

Needless to say, Magnus got his ass handed to him.

/

Which was why this arrangement had been made.

Magnus's powers might have turned out to be body manipulation rather than simple healing as he had thought, but that didn't change the fact he needed skin to skin contact to use it. In theory, he could use his powers on someone without touching them like when he went high-wire in the entrance, but he could hardly stop someone from moving when they were a meter away from him at this point. If he wanted to knock out someone with his powers –like he had learned how to do with T.J as a test subject - he would need to get close to them.

Meaning he would need to know how to fight. You can see where this goes south, right?

He had asked his friends for help, with varying degrees of success. Both Mallory and Halfnorn's fighting styles relied heavily on the use of pure force, whether by quirk or by physical built, something Magnus didn't have, and both Sam and T.J were better at long distance fighting. Leaving Magnus with Alex as his teacher.

Which wasn't _bad,_ per se. Her fighting style worked for him, given that they were both very slim. She relied more on agility and quick movements, using her smarts to exploit her opponents' strength and size against them rather than brute force. She wasn't a bad teacher either. Sure, maybe Magnus was late for the first period a couple of times because he was so exhausted after their training that he slept in, but it was really paying off. He had started to build up more muscle and he had become swift on his feet.

Still, there was the unfortunate side-effect that his teacher was extremely attractive and he had a crush on her the size of the school's training grounds. Yeah, he had it _that_ bad.

So what if Magnus got hit a couple times too many times because his brain thought it was a good time to tell him just how good Alex looked at that moment? Or if she'd take off her shirt when it got too hot and Magnus would get heart palpitations so bad he should probably get it checked? He was still learning.

(That Alex's bronze skin looked gorgeous under the sun and that she put her hair in a ponytail when she trained and that she made the most ridiculous jokes when she was high on after-workout joy.)

Yes, he was crushing hard.

"Come one, Maggie! Get up!"

In more ways than one.

Alex was teaching him how to do a judo flip today ("All you might need to do is touch someone but you always need to be prepared!" as she put it) and Magnus may or may not have gotten distracted and flipped on his back on the ground for the third time that evening.

"Sorry, sorry," Magnus muttered as he picked up his sore body from the ground. They were in an open training field near the edge of campus, a quiet little corner of the school surrounded by trees that not a lot of people stumbled upon. They had picked this specific location for Magnus's sake, since he still felt weird about being without his binder around anybody that wasn't in their class.

"Well, look on the bright side," Alex said, stretching her arms far above her head. _Damn it, Magnus, focus._ "You lasted longer this time."

"Yeah, yeah." Alex wasn't wrong; Magnus fighting had improved. As long as he didn't get distracted by Alex, he did pretty well. "Can we take a break? I think I heard my spine pop."

Alex, of course, laughed at his pain and Magnus should have really been more upset about that but he wasn't. "Ok, Maggie. I'm thirsty anyway." Alex walked over to the bench where they had left their stuff and pushed her hair out of her sweaty forehead before taking large gulps from her water bottle.

 _I am too._

Alex held out her water bottle for him. "Want some?"

Magnus tried not to make that weird. He failed. Cheeks flushed – not just from their training – he plopped down next to Alex and reached for his own bottle. "No, I'm fine, I brought one."

Alex shrugged. "Suit yourself." She downed half the bottle's content in one go, a little water dripping past her lips. She wiped it away with her gloved hand.

"S-say," Magnus started, because he was flustered and said the first thing that came to him, "how come you always wore gloves? I've never seen you take them off."

"Oh, my soulmark is on my palm," Alex explained, rubbing her left palm with her thumb. "I don't want to accidentally touch it when I'm feeling down and stress my soulmate up about it." She laughed, as if remembering something, and tucked some stray hairs behind her ear. "I did that once when I left my parents' house about a year ago. I've never felt him as sympathetic and kind. He didn't even know what was happening and yet he was trying to make me feel better."

Alex's eyes were trained on her palm as she rubbed circles on it and Magnus was sure if it wasn't for the glove her soulmate would be getting drowned in that warmth and love that made Alex's eyes go soft. His heart clenched uncomfortably in his chest. _Her soulmate is lucky. I wish I was in his place._

Instead he said, "He sounds nice."

Alex smiled down at her palm. "Yeah, he is."

"Have you met him then?" Magnus didn't know why he was asking more questions but the words kept rolling off his tongue.

Alex seemed to struggle with the right words, until finally she said, "In a way. I saw his soulmark so I know he's my soulmate but he doesn't know I'm his."

"Why don't you just tell him?"

Alex leaned back on the bench, his arm coming way too close to hugging Magnus's shoulders. "That's the other reason I wear gloves. I don't want to just go up to him like 'hey, I'm your soulmate, let's suck face!' I want him to date me just because he likes me, not because the universe or whatever said we should be together."

Magnus chuckled at the mental image. "I hadn't pegged you as the romantic type."

Alex laughed and punched him in the arm. "Oh, shut up, Maggie."

Magnus rubbed at the place Alex hit him, more from habit rather than actual pain and laughed again. "So have talked to him? Are you friends?"

"Yeah, and I've even been hitting on him," Alex sighed in exasperation. "Very obviously too, but he just _won't take the hint_!"

Alex was looking right at him as he said the last part, emphasizing each word and as a fellow pinning teen, Magnus felt her suffering.

"Well-" he started, but before he was able to say what he wanted a loud explosion shook the ground. The duo sprang up immediately, scanning their surroundings alarmed.

"What was that?" Alex asked.

"I don't know-" The hairs on the back of Magnus's neck stood on edge and he whipped around in time to see a group of villains bursting out of the trees. _What the hell?!_

The villains run straight for them and Magnus braced himself for a fight. _They're way too many. We need to call help._

"Alex!" he called out but before he could tell her to change into an animal and go find a teacher, a villain in metal armor was upon him, wrapping his arms around Magnus's torso and pinning his arms in place. _Shit!_

"Magnus!" Alex tried to come to him but the villains were on her immediately. She changed from animal to human to animal faster than Magnus had ever seen but her opponents were way too many. He kicked and tried to get away but his captor's grip was too tight. A villain attacked Alex with winds so sharp they made tears in her clothes and gloves, the fabric falling off her hands.

"Leave the kid! We got the one we needed!" one of the villains said – Magnus wasn't sure who, he was too busy thrashing around in the armored man's arms – and the rest of them backed away from Alex. She managed to get a hit on one of them, the claw marks on his face dripping blood.

"You little-!" he growled. His punch landed on Alex's face, who gasped in pain as she fell to the ground.

"Alex!" he cried out but he couldn't move.

"Let's go," the man holding him said. The villains grabbed onto a rope ladder as it dangled from a helicopter flying over the school. As Magnus's captor used one arm to hold onto the rope, Magnus kicked as hard as he could and managed to slip out of his grasp.

For a single moment, he hung in midair, out of the villain's grasp. Alex stumbled to her legs, panic in her eyes as she reached out for him. For a moment, Magnus thought he was going to make it, but then the villain grabbed him by the shirt and yanked him away.

The last thing Magnus saw as the villains took him away was the iridescent flower on Alex's outstretched hand as she cried out his name.

* * *

 **A bad place to end this chapter? Maybe for you, but I'm really enjoying this :3**


	3. Chapter 3

The villains must have drugged him, because he lost consciousness. When he came to, his hands were tied behind his back and he couldn't move. Magnus had been tied up and left on the dirty floor, like a sack of potatoes. The room he was in was dark, except for the security monitors that filled one wall, their cold light illuminating the figure of a man with his back to Magnus. He was tall, his hands clasped behind his back, and as he turned back to look at Magnus, he felt chills run up his spine. This, _this,_ was a true villain, there was no doubt about that.

"So you finally woke up, huh?" he said, voice smooth and sweet as honey and just _wrong_ like poison. Magnus didn't respond, his brain telling him that it's better for him not to provoke his captor and his instincts cowering in fear from the raw power that the villain seemed to breathe out. It was evident he was in a completely different level than him or the goons that attacked him.

"Tch, cat got your tongue?" The villain asked, coming closer. Magnus pressed his back into the wall. "Don't be afraid, I won't hurt you. I only want some company, is all. All these knuckleheads are perfectly good muscle, but they suck at holding a conversation."

The man dropped down to a crouch in front of Magnus. The healer's breath hitched at the hideous scars spread across the villain's face. They stretched all the way from his cheeks to his brow, creating mountains and rivers of ruined skin over his nose, twisted and revolting. Recognition hit Magnus and he froze to his core.

The Silver-tongued Villain, Loki.

"Seems my reputation precedes me," Loki said, looking at Magnus's terrified expression with an amused smile.

"What do you want with me?" Magnus asked. He had heard about Loki on the news, though he had gone quiet recently. He knew from the broadcasts that the villain's quirk was the ability to enforce his will on others; the more he talked, the more his power took effect until the victim was like a puppet for him to control. It really did seem like Magnus would need to hold a conversation with him, otherwise he was doomed.

Loki shrugged (how did he manage to make that seem threatening?) "Oh, not much. I was bored, I needed something to do. Besides," the villain's eyes raked over his small form and a smile spread across his face, more akin to a predator showing teeth than a sign of happiness, "that quirk of yours would be rather useful in the right hands, don't you agree? Or, I guess for you that would be the wrong hands."

"Did you scrape you knee somewhere and need me to make it better?" Magnus asked because it was the first response that came to him and his mouth is someday going to be the death of him.

Loki, thankfully, seemed more amused by his comment and didn't beat him up on the spot. "We both know that's not all you can do. You just need a little… _guidance_." He said 'guidance' the same way one might say 'punishment'. Magnus was sure they wouldn't be that different.

"I get all the guidance I need in UA, thank you very much," Magnus said and before Loki could get the chance to answer, he kept going. _I can't let him speak a lot._ "And anyway, they're going to come rescue me, so I don't think we're going to have enough time for any lessons."

"What a shame that would be. But they need to rescue you first and I doubt they can do that."

"Yeah, right!" For someone that had been kidnapped and didn't know where he was, Magnus spoke with a lot of confidence. In a situation like this, the only thing he could do was buy time and hope the heroes would come. "I'm sure they can take you down. You lost pretty bad some years ago, didn't you? If they beat you then they can do it again. The heroes will come and they will take you down."

Loki chuckled and stood up. Magnus's heart rate picked up – something was going on if he laughed like that at the thought of being defeated. "I hope they come. I have a message for them. Society has enjoyed its peace long enough; I've returned and I'm going to stay this time."

"Sir!" One of Loki's henchmen burst through the door, panicked and panting. "The heroes have come!"

"Ah, right on time." Loki walked to the chair sat in front of the monitors and took a silver helmet from it. With it on, he looked like a warrior, ready to cut down anybody in his way. "I'll go greet our guests. You stand by the door and guard the boy."

"Shouldn't I put him in a cell, sir?"

Loki rolled his eyes and sent Magnus a look like _"You see what I have to deal with?"._ "If I wanted him in a cell I would have put him there myself. He stays here. And leave the monitors on. If he's so confident he'll be rescued, I want him to see just how bad his heroes fail him."

"Y-Yes, sir!"

Both Loki and the henchman left, leaving Magnus alone in the room. A terrible move under other circumstances, but Magnus was tied up, in a room with only one exit and he had absolutely no idea in which part of the building he was or even where the building was in general.

His eyes instead strayed to the monitors. In one near the top, he saw the teachers from UA in their hero costumes, flagged by third-year students. Magnus recognized a lot of them as some of the best future heroes the school had – in fact, with everything that particular year had gone through, they were practically already heroes. He saw Percy, Annabeth and the rest of the "Seven", as they were known around school, standing ready for battle next to Professor Blitzen and Hearthstone. They were occupied by a few weak henchmen – no doubt Loki's strategy to tire them out before he made his dramatic appearance.

A movement towards the lower monitors caught his eyes and he gasped at what he saw. Alex, Sam, T.J, Mallory, and Halfborn were sneaking into the building through a dark back room.

 _Why are they here?_ Magnus though, fear seizing him at all the possible way they could be hurt. _The heroes are attacking the front and the rescue team is coming in from the back? But no, they wouldn't let first years come to the mission… Which means they came here on their own!_

Magnus glanced at the door. It was made of steel, with no windows. The guard outside mustn't be able to see him. Good.

Magnus stood up as well as he could with his arms tied behind his back and walked to the monitors. Blueprints of the facility were displayed on a screen in the control panel, tiny red dots showing where there were guards suited. There were quite a few between his friends and where the security room he was in was. _If only I could tell them how to find me._

Magnus looked at the screen again. His friends were still in the same room, hunched together, probably discussing battle plans. Magnus was torn between his want to escape and the fear of his friends getting hurt for him. Who knew how many villains would attack them or what kind of quirks they had! This could go so horribly wrong.

Alex's hands moved as she tried to explain something to the others and Magnus saw the glinting of light on Alex's soulmark. _She's not wearing any gloves… That's it!_

His eyes scanned the control panel in a panic until he found the sound switches. He bent down and flicked on the right one with his nose. The sound was loud enough to be heard and Magnus turned it down just to be on the safe side. He didn't know how well sound traveled through these walls.

"You all got the plan?" he heard Alex ask. The rest nodded and Magnus let his fingers push against his soulmark. Good thing Loki didn't cover his hands.

Alex gasped on screen, looking down to her hand, the faintest smile tugging at her lips. "What is it?" Sam asked, her voice filled with static from the speakers.

"Magnus sent me something," she said. "He feels alright." Warm relief washed through Magnus's soulmark as Alex spoke, accompanied by confidence optimism. The soulbond equivalent of saying, "It's okay. I'll save you."

"Why are we sitting around then? Let's bust him out!" Mallory said, her sleeves rolled up.

Magnus flipped on another sound switch as they moved to a corridor. It branched out in two different paths, one going right and one left.

"Which way should we go?" T.J asked and Magnus put his plan in motion. With his fingers pressed against his soulmark, he sent Alex a short wave of happiness and then sadness.

Alex's eyes snapped down to her hand. Concern spread out from his palm but Magnus didn't respond. _Come on, please say the words…_

"Maybe right?" Halfborn asked and Magnus sent happiness again. The microphone was able to catch her confused, "what?"

"We could split," Sam suggest. "Half go left," sadness, "and half go right." Happiness.

Alex's eyes widened as she seemed to come to a realization. "Right," she said and Magnus sent through happiness again. "Left." He sent sadness. Alex grinned as she caught on to Magnus's plan and he heard her laugh through the speakers.

"It's right," she told the others. "Magnus can see us somehow and he's sending us directions!"

"Alright!" Halfborn cheered. "Good job Magnus!"

He tracked their movements through the monitors, sending Alex happy feelings to let her know which corridor they should go down. He managed to keep them away from any villains that were left behind at the back part of the facility. Most were out front, fighting against the heroes. Magnus glanced up at that screen again. He saw waves forming around Percy, Frank's arms replaced by those of a bear and lighting cackling from Jason's fingers. Annabeth was locked in a fight with a villain who quickly got overwhelmed by her while Hazel attacked her opponents with pieces of rock and metal. He saw Piper's lips moving as she controlled one of the villains to attack their own and Leo's hands were on fire as he fought by side. He even spotted Nico, a second-year, fighting amongst them, shadows dripping from his fingers.

It was a few corridors before Magnus's temporary prison that one of the henchmen turned around, heading right towards where his friends were. He gasped and he could tell his fear and panic went through to Alex from the way her stride faltered, but it wasn't enough. Sam turned to look at her over her shoulder just as the villain came out from behind the corner. He was a huge beast of a man, almost as tall as the ceiling, with a head that resembled a bear and the body hair of one. His eyes widened almost comically at the sight of the heroes-to-be this far in the facility and he roared, clawed hands coming down on them.

They rolled out of the way, thankfully, and Mallory quickly threw one of the daggers in her belt at the villain's feet. For a second, it did nothing, and Magnus's body froze with fear. Then the dagger exploded in a bright flash of light, the villain staggering backwards in surprise. Magnus would have allowed himself to breathe again if it wasn't for the fact that an explosion like that makes a lot of noise, noise that will attract more villains to where his friends are.

But – what is Sam doing? He can pick out the furrow between her brows that's always there when she concentrates hard on her powers, her palms held up on either side of her towards the corridors. Magnus's eyes snap to the other monitors and yes, sure enough, none of the henchmen stationed in the surrounding hallways seem to react at all to the noise. He doesn't know how she did it, if Sam can manipulate the air to affect the vibrations of sound through it, doesn't even know if that's possible, but it worked.

Halfborn has the surprised villain in a pinned to the floor under his weigh, his skin ragged and sharp from his quirk turning it to stone and he yells at Alex to, "Leave! We'll deal with this!"

Alex doesn't protest, doesn't say anything, simply nods and keeps running with T.J on her tail and Magnus realizes they must have made a plan in case something like this happened beforehand.

They don't encounter any more villains in their path, Magnus was extra careful about the directions he was giving them, but he can't stop his heart's frantic beating. They're – kids, they're just students with barely half a year in the heroics program, they're out of their league in this building teeming with villains and heroes and Magnus is scared, _terrified_ of everything that can go wrong. And so is Alex, he can feel it through their bond, the same way he feels a grim determination to save him and he lets himself hope she will succeed.

A few more turns and Alex and T.J are almost at the security room. It had gotten harder for Magnus to sent Alex positive emotions to guide her with all his fear, but she seemed to pick up on them regardless. Magnus switches to another camera and there they are, his soulmate and one of his best friends in the same hallway as the henchman that he had seen earlier. Alex is in the front, with T.J behind her fiddling with his fingers the way he does when he's loading up bullets for his quirk.

But they're not silent enough and the villain hears them. He opens his mouth to yell, but Alex has changed into a bull and ran head first into him. They go down together, Alex switching to bear, faster than Magnus has ever seen her use her quirk. The villain doesn't give up, trashing against the weight holding him down, his hands and forearms morphing into sharp blades that whip at Alex. She growls and howls in pain but doesn't move, not when the man underneath her slashes her right leg or when he hits her bear forearms with his blades. Magnus can feel her pain like a throb in the back of his head, sharp and persistent, and his up against the door, desperately trying to open, to somehow get out and help them. But the door doesn't budge, it's locked from the outside.

He whips his head back to the monitors, where T.J fires a bullet right at the man's neck just as his blade-arm stabs Alex's side. The pain shoots through him as Alex's name is ripped from his throat, screaming, and the next second the door is open and Magnus is rushing out to Alex's human form where she's slumped against the wall.

"Alex!" he cries out and there might be tears in his eyes but he doesn't care because he _needs to heal her._

"Hey, Maggie," she says weakly, smiling, like she didn't just infiltrate a villains base with their friends to save him and gotten herself _stabbed in the side._

"T.J, free my hands, I need to heal her," he pleads as T.J grabs a knife from the fallen guard and cuts the rope tying his hands. His palms fly to either side of Alex's face, cradling her for a second, just to remind himself that she's here and she's alive and he'll keep it like that. He lays his hands near the tear in her costume, where the blade stabbed her and her blood is painting the fabric crimson and tries to _heal_ despite his frenzy, reconnect the blood vessels and the tissue and close the ugly wound near her hip.

"Magnus," she says, soft and warm, like she loves the feeling of the word on her tongue, and he looks up. His vision is blurred with tears but she smiles and wipes them away. A small, almost delirious giggle bubbles out of her throat, the kind where you're so astonished and happy things worked out that you can't help but laugh. She tucks her face in the crook of his neck and he can feel her smile against his skin. "You're okay."

"I am," he says and hugs her tight, clenching his hands in her clothes and letting all his fear wash over and off him as he feels her warmth. _This is going to be okay._

She holds her head up, looking into his eyes like she wants to tell him something even their soulbond can't explain. Then her lips are pressed against his, salty from her tears and ragged from her worrying them, but they're warm and they're Alex's and they somehow reassure him that things will work out.

"Guys, hate to interrupt, but we need to leave," T.J says as they pull away from each other. Absentmindedly, Magnus notices that Alex's wounds are mostly closed and realizes that he must have healed them when they kissed.

"He's right, let's go," says Alex, and she takes Magnus's right hand in her left as they maneuver around the unconscious guard and leave. Their soulmarks are right against each other and the feeling is mind-blowing but Magnus can't think about it too much at the moment.

"Was that guy…?" Magnus asks as they follow the way they came to the exit.

"No, he's not dead," T.J says. "It was a tranquilizer bullet. He'll wake up in a few hours with a bad headache. "

Magnus is relieved to hear that. He knows these are villains, that they tried to hurt them and probably wouldn't hesitate to kill them, but the idea of killing someone still leaves a sour taste in his mouth. Part of him knows they will be faced with a choice like this some time in their hero carriers but he's glad it wasn't today.

Without Magnus giving them directions from the security room, they have to rely on memory to find their way back and pray they don't cross paths with a villain. Thankfully, there seem to be very few here – Magnus assumes that by this point they've all headed to the front to help – and T.J navigates them through the halls expertly, seemingly having memorized the route while they were coming to rescue him.

They turn a corner and find Sam, Halfborn and Mallory next to the bear-like villain. He's lying unconscious on the floor, with his arms tied up behind him and his ankles strapped together. Magnus sees a small puncture wound on his neck and a small gun in Mallory's hand. They must have brought more tranquilizers with them and he can't help but wonder how carefully they had planned all this (and where they got the tranquilizer from).

"Magnus!" Sam is the first to see them approaching and she rushes towards him, wrapping her arms around him and hugging him tightly. Halfborn and Mallory are quick to join them with shouts of his name and other nicknames and Magnus finds himself crushed between all of his friends, warm bodies on all sides. Suddenly all the fear he's barely managed to keep in check comes out and he's gripping the clothes of whoever is closest to him, tears in his eyes, because all this is crazy and he was so scared, he's still scared, but now he's not alone.

"Let's get out of here," Halfborn says, his eyes wet with tears and a smile on his lips.

"Aw, you're crying," Mallory teases him, which is ironic considering she's in the same state.

"Keep your flirting for after we've gotten out of here," Alex says, somehow managing to untangle their group hug despite her hand never leaving Magnus's.

Halfborn raises an eyebrow, eyes flitting down to their joint hands, and he looks like he wants to say something, but the ground shakes at that exact moment, almost knocking them off their feet. The fight out front is getting serious, they all realize, and without a word start running towards the exit with T.J's brilliant memory guiding them. Just what you would expect from someone who has memorized all his friends' phone numbers.

As they run, Magnus tries to focus on Alex's wounds. They're not that bad anymore, not after he unconsciously healed most of them when they kissed, but he still works on them as they run. His hand in hers feels warm and tingly, his soulmark especially feels like it's on fire where it's pressed against Alex's. He can sense her feelings flooding through his, stark and much more precise than anything they had ever been able to share through their bond. It's almost like they're his emotions, he would have confused them for his if it wasn't for the innate knowledge that they belonged to his soulmate. _So this is what it feels like to touch your soulmate's mark._

They're in the back room they had come in through faster than Magnus had expected and they climb out through an unlocked window. He had to, unfortunately, let go of Alex's hand to climb out and he feels cold at the loss of contact.

"Come on, hurry up!" Mallory hisses at him from the outside. He and T.J are the last two inside the building, T.J's eyes trained on the door as Magnus climbs out the small window. It's much higher on the outside than it is on the inside and he'd be scared of falling from this high in any other situation, but after everything, this doesn't feels scary at all. He kicks his legs, pushing his whole body through the window and – into Alex's arms?

"Careful there," she says, her hands around his waist and her eyes shining as she smiles. "Wouldn't want you getting hurt after we've just rescued you."

"Y-yeah," is all Magnus manages to say because they're standing so close and Alex's hands feel so right around his waist and sweet falafel, he wants to kiss her again.

"And you were telling _us_ not to flirt," Halfborn says, rolling his eyes.

Alex's hand slips back into his as they run away from the compound to where T.J mum is waiting to pick them up in her battered old Ford. They've almost reached the car when an even louder explosion shakes the ground. Turning around, they see smoke billowing from the compound, a big part of it collapsed as dark storm clouds loom above, shooting down lighting.

"Come on," Mallory urges. "Let's leave before we're found and put in detention."

/

In the end, they still got detention.

The school had been under heavy lockdown following Magnus's kidnapping and the students were advised to go everywhere in groups, even if it was inside the campus. Security had become strict and it was hard to do anything without a teacher knowing. They needed to keep the students safe, and 'safe' certainly didn't mean sneaking out to rescue your friend from a villain's base. Good intentions or not, Magnus's friends had broken the rules by putting themselves in such danger when they were only first years and they got punished accordingly.

" _Man,_ I can't believe we need to do this for the next two months!" Alex grunted where he was kneeling on the floor by the toilet. He had picked the short lot and had to be the one to clean them today. As part of their detention, the floor 19 gang (excluding Magnus) were prohibited from leaving the campus and the dorms for anything other than school trips and had to clean the entirety of the first, second and third-year dorms for two and a half months.

"Technically, it's two months and a week," Magnus corrected from where he was perched on the bathroom sink. It had only been a week since the rescue mission and he could see how tired his soulmate was getting of having to clean toilets and dorm rooms every single day.

"Shut up," Alex told him, flicking soap at him. Which really didn't work since he was at the other side of the room and the foamy soap just landed on the floor, which Alex also needed to clean. Alex frowned at the soap like it had betrayed him and turned back to scrubbing the toilet seat clean. They were currently in the boys' bathroom on the first floor, with Sam and Mallory cleaning the girl's side and T.J and Halfborn – the lucky bastards – were cleaning the kitchen and common room.

"You know you'll have to clean that, right?" Magnus pointed out.

Alex sighed. "I know." He turned his eyes back to the toilet and regarded it for a moment skeptically before asking, "Do you think I could drown myself in this?"

"Survived a villain's lair, bested by cleaning a toilet. Truly a heroic end," Magnus said solemnly, his lips tugging upwards in a smile despite trying to look grim and serious.

"Yeah, at least I didn't have to clean everybody's rooms there," Alex shot back, moving to the next stall to clean that toilet. "I've learned stuff about my classmates that I never wanted to know this week. Like, I know where some people keep their porn now! Why do you have that around when the internet is a thing? And Nico from 2A has all these weird card games and figurines hidden under his bed. And all of Louis's cookbooks are a bother to dust off and…"

Magnus let his mind drift away as he heard his soulmate ramble on and on about the horrors of cleaning a teenager's room. Moments like these – where everything was quiet and simple, where he could just hang out with Alex and speak for hours on end and just enjoy himself – felt precious after the events of last week, even if they were hanging out while cleaning toilets.

He jumped off the sink, grabbed a pair of plastic gloves, and knelt next to Alex. "Let me help," he said. "You'll finish quicker this way." Alex didn't protest, just kept talking. Magnus had been helping them out with cleaning even though he didn't need to this past week and he knew telling him show wouldn't stop him from sharing Alex's workload.

Pro Heroes said, Magnus though as he scrubbed, that it's important to remind yourself why you're a hero in order to be a great one. He lifted his eyes to look at Alex again, his mouth moving a mile a minute again, and he felt like he understood what they meant by that. Moments like this were worth fighting for.

"Alex," he said, and the shapeshifter stopped talking, looking at his boyfriend confused.

"Yeah?" Magnus leaned forward and kissed Alex, sweet and simple, and Alex kissed him back. _This is definitely worth fighting for,_ Magnus thought.

"Not that I didn't like it," Alex said when they pulled apart, cheeks red because as suave as he might try to act, he gets really embarrassed sometimes, "but this isn't really the most romantic place to kiss."

Magnus chuckled. "I know. I just felt like it."

It was blunt and straightforward and Magnus knew he was blushing as much as Alex right now – this whole relationship thing was new for both of them – but it was true. Alex rolled his eyes at him but still kissed him on the cheek before standing up.

"Come on," he said, lending Magnus a hand so he could stand up. "We still need to mop the floor, I don't want to stay here all night. The others are having a movie night today and I asked the cook to save you some falafel from lunch."

Magnus grinned as Alex handed him a mop and they got to work. "You're my hero," he teased him, just to see the flush on his cheeks and feel the affection rushing through their soulmark.

* * *

 **Yes, I had them kiss next to a toilet. I don't know why, but here it is.**

 **As for the powers:**

 **Percy can control water, obviously. He controls the already existing water and he can make water by gathering up the moisture in the air, though it's taxing. The more he uses his quirk the more dehydrated he becomes, so his costume has a built-in water supply so he can drink and use in battle.**

 **Annabeth can see up to a week in the future, but the farther ahead she looks the fewer details she sees. She uses this power to come up with the best possible plan for a given situation. It's possible to act in such a surprising way that her quirk didn't foresee. She gets a headache is she uses it for too long.**

 **Jason can create lighting, but it uses up his energy so he eats a lot of carbs and nutritional foods to have a bigger reserve. If he overdoes it he faints.**

 **Piper can make people do what she tells them but how successful it is depends on the person's will and how persuasive she can be. It helps if she tells them to do something they actually want subconsciously so she's good at reading people.**

 **Hazel can control things from the earth (dirt, rock and such) and is especially good with minerals. She gets tired is she uses it too much, so she's sleepy afterward most of the time (Frank carries her is she falls asleep)**

 **Frank can change parts of his body to those of animals (bear arms, fish gills, chameleon skin, webbed fingers etc). He needs to have a good understanding of the animal to be able to change into it.**

 **Leo can control fire, but his temperature rises as he does it. The hotter the fire he makes is, the faster he gets a fever. His suit has a build -n cooler. He uses his fire to build things and he actually takes some Hero Support lessons, so he makes the support items for most of his friends.**

 **Nico can control shadow creatures. He can make up to ten, but the more he makes the rowdier they become so they're harder to control. They used to treat him very badly, whispering all his insecurities in his ears, but he managed to get over that in his first year and now he and his shadows are friends (he had named them). Now the shadows are more likely to tease him about his crush and hold mistletoe over his head. The shadows are less effective in the sun.**

 **Will isn't here, but he's a solar-powered healer (he heals better in the sun)**


End file.
